The blog of Writing for the Web 4th edition

June 2004

June 29, 2004

Just ran across a story in Newsweek online that reminded me about Ohmynews, a Korean Web-based journal. I'd assumed that it was entirely in Korean, but it does have an English version. You can visit it at OhmyNews International.

The principle here is that the ordinary person can be a reporter, and thousands of people (now including non-Koreans) are submitting stories. Even if they get published, they don't make much money. But they give a very interesting view of the world from the viewpoint of amateur journalists.

Ohmynews is also looking for English-language contributions. This could be your big break!

June 27, 2004

Monday is election day here in Canada, and a very exciting one: the two major parties are neck and neck, and we seem almost certain to get a minority government. But whose? And with whose support?

I'll have an article in The Tyee on Monday morning, discussing the impact of the Web on the Canadian election; then, starting around 4:00 pm PDT, The Tyee will hold a kind of open house where everyone can comment as the election returns come in.

In the old days, we in the west weren't supposed to know the results in the east until our own polls had closed. Then, before our own votes were even counted, the eastern media would tell us who'd won. This was supposedly to let us vote as we wished; the effect, of course, was simply to frustrate us. Now we'll know the eastern results while our polls are open, and we'll vote as we wish anyway. Given the closeness of the race, British Columbia could well decide the outcome for once—so the easterners will have to stay up to learn what happened.

I'm spending most of the morning as a scrutineer, making sure no one stuffs any ballot boxes. Then I'll vote on my way home in the afternoon, and follow both the results and the comments by Tyee visitors.

I've mentioned editorsweblog.org before, but here's another plug for it. I don't know of another resource that offers such insights into the issues that editors face in media around the world. If you're an online writer, you should be a regular visitor.

June 07, 2004

My old friend Steve Outing at Poynter.org has a good new article: The Blog-Only News Diet describes the experience of a PR executive who wanted to see how much he could learn about world news strictly from blogs.

It made me realize how much of the news I get from blogs now as well—including blogs run by news media.